Labor As An Initiation

People have often asked me if it is weird feeling her move around inside of me.  Not at all.  Movements aren't often felt until after the sixteenth week, so I spent four months waiting to feel kicks and punches, so it's been comforting.  Beyond the moments where she has punched me just a little too hard or jammed her little feetsies into my ribs, every movement just sprouts feelings of love for her and appreciation for the incredible process of growing a child in the womb.  I cannot tell you where in the world my stomach ended up, as there's a baby where that used to be housed.  When I breathe from my diaphragm, it's obvious that I have no idea where that went either.  This little girl that will come into this world with her own spirit started out as just a few cells.  She grew a new brain, new kidneys, a new heart, new lungs, and the code written from the stars into her genes has already started to express her personality.  It hasn't even really started, and yet, it's already been an incredible journey for us both.

In the Bradley student workbook, Jay Hathaway, the Co-Executive Director of the American Academy of Husband-Coached Childbirth, asked why not just give birth?  Why do women go through labor?  Hathaway mused on what labor is:

1. A warning sign that a new human life is about to enter the family, community, and this world.
2. A time of physical preparation within and for the mother's body.  
1. To prepare to give birth.
2. To prepare to become a mother.
3.  A physical preparation for the baby's body for being born, changing from an intrauterine life to an extraunterine life.
4. A period of time to assist the mother to grow and change psychologically (emotionally and mentally) for giving up the status of "pregnant woman" and for accepting the responsibilities of mothering a newborn.
5. A period of time to assist the baby to grow and change psychologically (emotionally and mentally) for the "first day of the rest of his or her life."

This really struck me.  Labor is a period of time to assist the mother to grow and change psychologically (emotionally and mentally).  Long story short, labor is an initiation.  It is a physical, emotional, and mental initiation of the maiden into motherhood.  It is a physical, emotional, and mental initiation of the child from fetus to newborn.  Just as many spiritual traditions guide people through initiations from students to members, labor is a transformation.  It is an experience that no one can fully prepare you for.  You just have to experience it yourself.  There is this club called motherhood, and one way to be initiated into that club is to grow from seed and harvest something the size of a squash out of your who-ha.  And, from what I hear (because I haven't been initiated into motherhood just yet), there is this transformation that could be described as a form of enlightenment.  It's been said to me several times on this journey that after this big ordeal of labor, in the moment new mothers connect with their newborns, they realize that the most important thing is their child and their family.  They refocus their priorities, and suddenly the things that seemed so important don't really matter. 

And, because of all of this, maybe it is a spiritual initiation for some.  For me, I do see this birth as a very spiritual experience.  Like all women, I am a manifestation of the feminine divine, which can be seen as the Maiden, Mother, and Crone, mirroring three phases of a woman's life.  By having a natural birth, I am reenacting an ancient tradition, an ancient initiation of maidens into mothers.